Minecraft is a commercial sandbox construction game written in pure Java. It is distributed as a JAR file and it’s compatible with any operating system where the Java runtime environment is available.

Is heavily inspired by popular titles

The game is heavily inspired by popular titles, such as Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper and Infiniminer. It involves players in creating and destroying various types of blocks in a three dimensional (3D) virtual environment.

Features at a glance

The player takes an avatar that can create or destroy blocks, forming fantastic structures and artwork across the various multiplayer servers. It features four game modes: Creative, Survival, Hardcore and Adventure. In the Creative mode, players will be able to destroy all blocks instantly, as well as to create and destroy structures.

Offers Survival and Hardcore modes

In the Survival and Hardcore modes players must explore the land, collect resources, build structures, battle mobs, and manage hunger. The difference between the Survival and Hardcore modes is that in the latter players can’t respawn.

It also features an Adventure mode

The Adventure mode is designed for player-created maps. This is an advanced mode where experienced Minecraft users have access to all the necessary tools for modifying the virtual environment as they see fit.

Under the hood and supported OSes

In order to run the Minecraft JAR binary file in your Linux operating system, first make sure that you have the latest Oracle Java Virtual Machine (JVM) environment installed. Then, you need to open a terminal emulator, navigate to the folder where the JAR file is and execute the java -jar Minecraft.jar command. If you run into "out of memory" errors, try launching the binary file with the java -Xmx1024M -Xms512M -cp Minecraft.jar net.minecraft.LauncherFrame command.

Availability and price

Minecraft costs €19.95 (US$26.95 or £17.95). It features multiplayer and singleplayer game modes, and can be played using a modern web browser that supports the Java technology. It’s a fun and educational game that can be played by anyone.

Minecraft was reviewed by Marius Nestor, last updated on August 26th, 2014